Nur al-Cubicle

A blog on the current crises in the Middle East and news accounts unpublished by the US press. Daily timeline of events in Iraq as collected from stories and dispatches in the French and Italian media: Le Monde (Paris), Il Corriere della Sera (Milan), La Repubblica (Rome), L'Orient-Le Jour (Beirut) and occasionally from El Mundo (Madrid).

Monday, April 05, 2010

Recalling the surge

"American helicopters and warplanes attacked a Shiite area on the outskirts of northern Baghdad late Friday and early Saturday, killing at least 15 people and wounding 10, according to an official at the Iraqi Interior Ministry who said some of the casualties were women and children...."

"The pilots believe [Reuters personnel] to be insurgents, and mistake Mr. Noor-Eldeen’s camera for a weapon. They aim and fire at the group [on a Baghdad street], then revel in their kills.

“Look at those dead bastards,” one pilot says. “Nice,” the other responds.

A wounded man can be seen crawling and the pilots impatiently hope that he will try to fire at them so that under the rules of engagement they can shoot him again. “All you gotta do is pick up a weapon,” one pilot says.

A short time later a van arrives to pick up the wounded and the pilots open fire on it, wounding two children inside. “Well, it’s their fault for bringing their kids into a battle,” one pilot says.